Mercosur presidents hold key summit in Argentina on negotiations with the EU
The heads of state of Mercosur opened the bloc's six-monthly summit in the Argentine city of Puerto Iguazú on Tuesday, with trade negotiations with the European Union (EU) as one of the key issues at the meeting.
The leaders of the four Mercosur member states took part in the meeting: Argentina's Alberto Fernández, Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Uruguay's Luis Lacalle Pou and Paraguay's Mario Abdo Benítez.
Also in attendance are Luis Arce, President of Bolivia, a country in the process of full Mercosur membership, and the President-elect of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, who will take office in August.
"I formally welcome you to this Mercosur summit," said Alberto Fernández, who will hand over the six-month Mercosur presidency to Lula da Silva on Tuesday.
Also present at the regional meeting are representatives of the bloc's associated countries (Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana and Suriname).
The meeting is being held in a luxurious hotel in the Argentine national park of Iguazú (1,300 kilometres northeast of Buenos Aires), which protects the impressive Iguazú Falls, on the border between Argentina and Brazil.
The presidential summit was preceded on Monday by a meeting of the bloc's Foreign Ministers, at which negotiations with the EU were at the centre of discussions.
Mercosur, founded in 1991, is currently engaged in the task of reaching a joint response to the letter sent last February by the EU with new demands in environmental matters, additional to the package of chapters already agreed in 2019, and which the South Americans consider unacceptable.
The Iguazú summit is the first biannual Mercosur summit since July 2019 in which the presidents of the four full member countries of the bloc participate in person.
"I want to highlight the enormous joy of receiving them in person, something we had not achieved in the last four years," said the Argentine president.
At the Mercosur meeting at the end of 2019, held in Vale de Vinhedos (Brazil), the president of Uruguay, Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010 and 2015-2020), who died in December 2020, was absent due to health problems.
In 2020 and 2021, the summits were held telematically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the participation of the presidents of the four countries.
But with the return to face-to-face meetings, both the Asunción summit (July 2022) and the Montevideo summit (December 2022) were attended by the then president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023).
